Logan Sewell

Weaver
November 21, 2014
The Rhetoric Mirror of Reflection

My journey through rhetoric was long, grueling, and excruciating. Yet, the journey is nowhere
near over. My knowledge has immensely grown and I have taken leaps and bounds as Neil Armstrong
did on his grand journey to the moon. Throughout my adventure, I have my ups and my downs. My ups
included my presentation about the literacy narrative, my rhetoric analysis, and some of my writing
responses. My downs were everything else, especially the renowned ethnography paper and field notes.
My mind is vastly creative and I tend to look at everything with different angles. My vocabulary was
weak and inferior to that of my classmates, but after weeks of reading from our different texts, I feel as
if my intellectual mind has increased and improved.
Throughout rhetoric class, I learned some valuable tokens of knowledge that will surely help me
throughout the rest of my adventure at college. Some of my finest masterpieces are put on display in my
portfolio. Although I wanted a touch of creativeness, I decided to design my portfolio with my writing
responses at the helm, followed by my rough drafts and cover letters, then my polished work, then this
fabulous reflection. I decided this order because I realized that doing so would help me design my
adventure-themed website. As Edmund Hillary did with his legendary climb up Mount Everest, I built up
my website so that the best work would be last. In my opinion, building the website was difficult but
very entertaining at the same time!

My thinking throughout the semester has evolved to something far greater than I would have
imagined. At the very beginning of the semester, I was close minded and once I was confronted with a
problem, I decided to go with my gut feeling, instead of looking at the problem from a different
perspective. As the semester progressed, I found myself looking at my work from different viewpoints.
This may be a confusing sentence so let me explain. I take a writing response or a rough draft, and I read
it over. I dont read it over as Logan. I read it over as if I was a classmate, a teacher, or even a coach. I
think about what they would say and comment about my work and I try to use these comments to
help build my paper and self-revise it as well. When thinking about a topic to write about, at the
beginning of the year, I decided to be straight forward and follow the prompt. Now, as the semester is
ending, I am starting to become more abstract. Although the topic may be more abstract, I still make
sure everything follows whatever I need so I dont trigger a booby trap of red marks and comments from
Ms. Weaver.
One of my favorite focuses during the semester was when we had to explain who our literary
sponsors were and how we became literate. During the time, it really touched me because I realized
that I took a lot of steps to get where I am today. No offense to Ms. Weaver or anything, but she
seemed like a go-to answer solely because she was the first rhetoric teacher that our class had. I decided
to take a different approach and start when I was born. Other students did this as well, but developed
their way to college. I stopped with my senior year of high school. If I had to write the same paper again,
I would add my class experience with Ms. Weaver because I learned even more after that paper was
written. I wouldnt think it would be fair if I included college as a sponsor since I was in there for a short
time at the moment of the first paper.
I have discovered more things about myself as a writer and a rhetor throughout the weeks that
have passed. I feel like Dr. Seuss whenever I write a clever line or a sentence with a hidden meaning.

With discovery comes courage and confidence. With the compliments and positive feedback on my
papers, I was able to put my personality inside a paper instead of doing only what the professor wanted.
I was able to display my comedic side and use metaphors to put a voice inside the paper rather than
having a voice that is very monotone. There isnt anything more that I dislike than a paper or an essay
that I cant stand to read. I also discovered that Im more of a grammar Nazi than I thought I was.
Whenever we had the peer edit workshops, I read some papers that had tons of grammatical errors and
it took everything in my power to not correct every single one. That being said, I know Im not perfect
and I know that my tense of words isnt always correct. I do have problems from time to time with my
grammar but I try to minimize it as much as possible.
All in all, I believed that rhetoric has developed and shaped me for success in other classes as far
as papers and writing responses go. I didnt enjoy writing much in high school and I always dreaded
doing a presentation in front of my peers. Now, with the gracious help from Ms. Weaver, I actually like
writing papers and I love standing in front of the class and giving a presentation about something Im
passionate about. I walked into the classroom with high hopes and high expectations and I came out
with more knowledge than I anticipated to learn. As Ms. Weaver as my sponsor and my peers as my
audience, my limits were nonexistent. I strived to go above and beyond what everyone else did and
bring life to my paper and bring a voice for all to hear. I hope that my journey and adventure interests
you as it did me. With rhetoric soon going to be behind me, I will carry the knowledge and skills to be
the adventurous writer of Lees-McRae.